1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the present invention relate generally to expediting information display, and more particularly to expediting display of new content on web pages.
2. Description of Related Art
Conventionally, content is provided by a content provider over a network. In survey embodiments, surveys may be provided to survey participants via the Internet. Typically, the survey participants go to a website to access one or more surveys. The survey is then provided to a browser associated with each survey participant.
Bi-directional communication of HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) traffic occurs during a survey process. HyperText Markup Language (HTML) source code is provided to the survey participant's browser which enables display of a survey page comprising one or more questions. The survey participant provides answer(s) to the one or more questions and submits the answer(s). The browser performs a form post and sends the answer(s) to a web server and/or application server providing the survey. Based on the answer(s), the application server determines a next set of one or more questions. The HTML source code is generated for the next set and sent back to the browser. This process continues until the survey is complete. Additionally, survey testers may also access surveys via a website or network connection in a similar manner.
Conventionally, the HTML source code returned by the application server will consist of code for an entire survey web page. That is the returned HTML source code will include body tags, form tags, and content. As a result, a full web page is loaded by the browser every time a next set of questions is provided even though only the content (i.e., the questions, themselves) may have changed.
An amount of time a survey participant is interested in responding to a survey is typically short. If a survey is too long, the survey participant may lose interest and stop responding. Thus, load time of a survey web page becomes an important factor for surveys that are longer in length. Additionally, as surveys are likely using “wizards” where a user has to go screen, the surveys may be tedious to test. Therefore, it is desirable to be able to reduce the load time of web pages and desirable to be able to navigate to different parts of a survey.